This week was really good. I'm so glad I've had Kate to show me around and give me an idea of the girls' routine, etc. Kate is also a really nice person and we get along well. I will be sad to see her go, but she will still be in London (she is going back to Nursing), so we will still see each other, and the girls have already planned several picnics to have with her during the summer holidays.
Tuesday and Wednesday I hung back and watched how Kate did things, saw what the girls routines were like and got to know them a bit. Kate was also driving on these days, and the insurance flipped over to cover me at midnight on Wednesday night. On Thursday, I took over; I drove the car and took charge of the girls, while Kate hung back, gave bits of advice, and helped me navigate so I didn't get lost! Luckily, I had ordered a Tom Tom, which arrived on Friday morning and made it much easir to navigate a new neighbourhood!
The general daily routine was something like this;
I would wake up at quarter to 7, and get ready for a possible 7am start, but most mornings Dilip and Cienwin didn't need me until 7:30. I would get the girls ready (breakfast, getting dressed, doing hair and brushing teeth), aiming to leave for school at 8:30am. We would drive to school (5 minutes), and walk Alyssa to her class (Reception, which is like Pre-Primary)for an 8:50 start, and then walk Lauryn around to her class (Nursery, which is like Kindy) for a 9am start. Kate and I would then go to the gym, go home and do some washing/empty the dishwasher/tidy up a bit, and be back st school to pick Lauryn up at 12. Lauryn would come home and have lunch, and then a nap (we only did this some days, she could easily have one every day, but will be starting full time school in September, so is slowly being weaned off them) for an hour or so, some play time and then we would go back to school to pick Alyssa up for 3:15pm. Some days we went to the park with another parent and one of her friends, and others we just went back home. We would make tea for 5:30pm (the girls take forever to eat so we set a timer for 30 minutes, but they usually take longer), and then a bath, brushing their teeth and reading some stories before mum and dad come home at 7:30 and put them to bed.
I am going to introduce a star chart for next week to encourage the girls to take a bit more responsibility for things like getting dressed, going to the toilet and eating their dinner and brushing their teeth without a fuss!
